


Morning Breaks

by Mount_Seleya



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Awkward First Times, Cunnilingus, Drunk jaime, Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, F/M, Fix-It, Fools in Love, Gentle Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark, Life-Affirming Sex, Love Confessions, Not Beta Read, POV Brienne of Tarth, Porn with Feelings, Post-Battle Sex, Season/Series 08, Showverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 12:35:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20046127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mount_Seleya/pseuds/Mount_Seleya
Summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of Winterfell, a drunken, hopelessly-besotted fool shows up at Brienne's door.





	Morning Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> I started this immediately after S8E3, as my wish for TBTWP, and then set it aside after the gut-punch of S8E4. I picked it up again and repurposed it into how I imagine the J/B love scene we got (Jaime being a drunken, awkward, hopelessly besotted fool) might've played out if written with, shall we say, more focus on _characters_ than on moving plot devices to their endpoints.

A raw shout rent the night. It tolled bell-deep over the snarling of the dead. _Jaime_, Brienne thought, her heart twisting. Her blood hammered wildly in her ears, but there was scarce room to move against the relentless, ravening crush. Bodies buffeted her into the cold wall. Terrible grey fingers snatched at her. Grave-stink clotted in her nostrils.  
  
The din swallowed Jaime's voice. Fire flashed off steel as Brienne swung her sword. A rotting arm fell away. She heard the echo of a scream in her mind, saw red on a tree-stump and the pale, dead curl of a hand grasping dawn. Jaime Lannister had bled for her once. Had given his flesh and his purpose. For her honour. For her life.  
  
Podrick was a panicked blur in the corner of her eye. He was fighting, sword slashing silver, breath puffing white. _There's nothing more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love_. She'd seen a shadow stab Renly in the heart. Felt his lifeblood pump warm between her useless fingers. And now Jaime was lost to a sea of gnashing monsters. He was gone, and there were words withering in her chest, words she had never known how to shape.  
  
Bone-fingers clicked around her right vambrace. Snapping black teeth lunged toward her neck. She screamed, then, a battle-cry from the deepest hollow of her heart, driving Oathkeeper's blade into corpse-flesh, sundering head from neck. _I charge you to be brave_, Jaime had told her. He'd want her to keep fighting. He'd want her to die a knight.  
  
And then the tide of death receded. All around wights fell like broken toys. Stillness settled over the ravaged yard. Brienne let her sword drop. The young maester was weeping a few yards away. Tormund stood atop a pile of bodies.  
  
"Ser," Podrick said from her side, small and wearied. "It's over, ser. We've won."  
  
Brienne dragged her gaze around. Podrick's face was a bloody mess. _Jaime is dead. That isn't victory. I failed him._ Then a ghost broke away from the wall, gore smeared on the pale cheeks above a shaggy, silvering beard.  
  
"Come," Jaime intoned, his voice a gritty creak. He fit his right arm into the bend of her elbow  
  
They walked through the shattered husk of the keep. Podrick's boots squelched and crunched behind. The ground was thick with fallen, weapons lying just out of reach of forever-stilled hands in the dirty, battle-churned snow.  
  
Survivors were huddled in the Great Hall when they arrived. Jaime guided Brienne to an empty chair at the high table. Tyrion lifted his gaze from his wineskin, mouth cracking a small, haunted smile as Jaime fell into the seat beside Brienne. Sansa was sat next to Tyrion. Dried blood speckled her face. Her hands were folded primly upon the table.  
  
"I was a fool," Tyrion said with a bitter laugh. "I should have known. Sheltering in the crypts. With the _dead_."  
  
"You've always been a fool," returned Sansa. "You've just been too clever to see it."  
  
Podrick drifted off to help clear the fallen from the hall. Tyrion brought the wineskin to his lips and took a large swig. Dawn was breaking now, slanting down through the high, frost-crusted windows in drowned blue-grey shafts.  
  
"I'm glad you are safe, my lady," Brienne broached after time.  
  
Sansa smiled at Brienne. It was a drawn, weary thing. "And I am glad we prevailed, Lady Brienne."  
  
"Ser Brienne," Jaime corrected, a note of pride in the gravel drag of his voice.  
  
Tyrion lifted the wineskin. His lips broke into a brittle curl of a smile. "Ser Brienne of Tarth."  
  
Silence fell over the table. Jaime cupped Brienne's cheek with his hand. Urged her head round to meet his blue eyes. "I don't expect this will leave much of a scar," he said, brushing a stray lock away from the gash on her brow.  
  
Brienne gave a wan smile. Her heart stuttered. The moment hung between them, a sweet, fragile promise. She'd known his feelings were the mirror of her own since Riverrun, when he'd looked at her with soft, yearning eyes. Then he'd returned to King's Landing, back to the arms of his twin sister, and she'd seen her love for a fool's hope.  
  
_He'll return to his sister soon enough_. The warmth guttered in Brienne's chest. Her chair skidded as she stood. Jaime's pale, blood-caked hand dropped limply to the tabletop, his fingers closing around cold, empty air.  
  
"I should assess the damage to the keep," Brienne said, striving to steady her voice with authority.  
  
"You should rest," countered Tyrion. "I imagine there's a bed left somewhere in this castle."  
  
Brienne firmed her lips. The insinuation was plain. Tyrion wanted his brother's happiness. Wanted to see him settled. But she couldn't allow herself to chase a maid's fancy. Couldn't leave her heart unarmoured to a man's whims.  
  
"You fought bravely," Sansa added. Her cool gaze cut to Jaime's bowed head. "Take whatever respite you need."  
  
"As you wish, my lady," Brienne replied, offering a short, tight nod before striding from the hall.  
  
Dead littered the corridors. Grey entrails lay amidst broken stones and splintered wood. The stink of death hung thick. It would take moons to repair the keep. Perhaps even years. But the Dragon Queen would surely wish to press south. And Jaime, as always, would return to his sister's side. Would fight her wars and blindly do her bidding.  
  
Brienne found her chamber undisturbed. The fire had long burned out. She took the flint and striker from the mantle. Kneeling upon the hearthrug, she struck the flint, unleashing a spray of red sparks, and watched the tinder curl.  
  
A knock shuddered through the silence after an age. Brienne rose from her chair before the hearth. She was tired and bruised, weighted by the black bulk of her armour, and her boots plodded as she walked to the door.  
  
"You're wounded," Jaime snapped at her as he pushed into the chamber.  
  
"I'm fine," Brienne shot back, shutting the door with a solid _thunk_.  
  
Jaime stalked to the table in the corner. Threw down a wineskin. Unwound the linen wrapped around his left arm. "Would accepting my help be beneath your honour?" he asked, a keenness in the grit of his voice.  
  
"You've been drinking," Brienne stated flatly when Jaime rounded on her a moment later.  
  
Jaime shrugged. Tipped his head to one side. "Half the castle is drowning itself in drink. Can you really blame them?" He'd removed his armour and cleaned the gore off his face. His tarnished gold hair clung to his brow in damp clumps.  
  
"No," Brienne answered, softening her tone. "Not after what we faced last night."  
  
Bootsteps smacked the flagstones as Jaime crept closer. Morning's silver warred with the orange firelight on his face. "You could've _died_," he told her, voice sinking to the rush of surf over shore, blue eyes searching hers in the stillness. His hand lifted to fumble with the leather strap securing the left spaulder to her cuirass. "Get this off. It's filthy."  
  
"Jaime," faltered Brienne, the name slipping from her lips like a held breath.  
  
"Get your bloody armour off," Jaime said, a little more sharply.  
  
Brienne gave Jaime a withering glare. She raised her hands, fingers tired and winter-stiff, unfastened the strap. At last she had shed the steel skin, and slumped into the chair at the table, a sigh skittering out of her mouth.  
  
Jaime's eyes bore down on her for a long moment. The apple of his throat fluttered with a swallow. Then he tore off a strip of clean white linen, dipped it into the basin on the table, and brought it to the gash on Brienne's brow. Bracing his false hand against the table, he washed the blood and grime from her face with slow, patient strokes.  
  
"The wound isn't that deep," Brienne insisted after a time.  
  
"It'll fester if I don't tend it," Jaime replied softly.  
  
"You're…" Brienne bit the words off. Drew a steadying breath. "You're not in any state to mend it."  
  
Jaime laughed, a soft, summery gust against her cheek. "You needn't spare my feelings, Ser Brienne of Tarth." Drollness tinged the low scrape of his voice. "I made poor work with a needle when I had a hand to spare."  
  
Fingertips grazed Brienne's cheek. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. The nearness of Jaime unsettled her. Made heat swoop low in her belly. She craved the sweet relief of his touch. It was a fool's want. He wanted shelter from the night's horrors, a warm woman to forget the cold, bitter leagues keeping him from his sister's bed.  
  
The hand retreated. The slosh of the wineskin followed. Brienne fought back a wince as Jaime dabbed at the gash. "Every knight needs battle scars," he said, the droll edge still in his voice. "Tokens of their valorous deeds."  
  
"Don't mock me," Brienne seethed, the chair screeching as she sprung to her feet.  
  
Jaime's eyes blew wide. A crease rifted his brows. "I'm not."  
  
His hand sought her face. The fingers curved around her cheek. Brienne's anger melted like frost under the noon sun. A small, treacherous flower of warmth opened in her chest, and she swallowed against the knot in her throat.  
  
"I thought I could die with honour fighting at your side. Then I heard you scream, and knew myself for a craven." Jaime's thumb ran circles on Brienne's fire-flushed skin. "I didn't ride north to fight for the living. I rode north for _you_." He paused a beat. His eyes were glistening. "And now I know I need to tell you."  
  
Brienne drew a breath. The fire crackled in the hearth. "Tell me what?"  
  
Jaime grabbed the nape of her neck. Dragged her down to meet the eager press of his mouth. The kiss was sloppy and desperate, and Brienne lifted her hands, clutching the collar of Jaime's shirt, pulling him against her.  
  
"I love you," Jaime breathed into Brienne's ear when they parted.  
  
Then his hand was sneaking beneath the hem of her shirt. Pushing upward to gently cup her breast in his large palm. His lips crushed into hers again, his tongue plumbing into her mouth, bold and warm. Her soft moan was lost in his mouth, and she blindly worked open the lacings on the front of her shirt, exposing her skin to the dry air.  
  
Jaime tore his mouth away after a time. Kissed down the valley between her breasts. "_Beautiful_."  
  
The impossibility of the word made Brienne's head swim. She'd never dared dream that a man might truly desire her. Not when she'd been an object of scorn at her own ball. Not when the laughter had cut to the quick of her soul.  
  
Her hands caught in the brassy shag of Jaime's hair. Held fast as his lips trailed warmth down her belly. When he reached the waist of her breeches, he fumbled open the laces with his hand, then jerked them roughly down her hips. And then he was on his knees before her, his face pushing into that soft, womanly space between her thighs.  
  
He ravished her with his mouth. Breathless gasps slipped from her lips. She'd long known the pleasure of her own hand, but this was something else entirely, a sweet torture of fingers and tongue, of whiskers rasping bare skin. Soon she was undone, cracked as soundly as a boiled egg by a spoon, and an undignified yelp burst out of her.  
  
"I want to fuck you," Jaime told Brienne in a low, wicked drawl when she found herself.  
  
The brazenness should've angered her. _A lady must guard her virtue_, Septa Roelle had warned. But she found she didn't care, not here, in this room, with a blue gaze burning up at her, and a wet, needing throb between her legs. "I want that, too," she said, simple and certain, reaching down to guide Jaime up from his place on the floor.  
  
Brienne eased off Jaime's golden hand. Set it on the table beside the wineskin. Her hands lifted to unlace his shirt. The rustle of cloth as she pulled it over his head seemed shockingly loud in the morning-hush of the chamber.  
  
Jaime gazed at her as she dropped the shirt on the chair. Ugly bruises mottled the leanly-muscled span of his torso. Brienne pressed her palm to his heart. The dark hair on his chest was shot through with silver. They'd wasted years. Danced around each other, circling and circling like squires in a sparring yard, never sure of their own steps.  
  
She remembered the wretch she'd met in the Stark camp. How his golden arrogance had borne the weight of irons. She had hated that man deeply, for the dishonour of his broken vow, and the cruel, cutting slash of his tongue.  
  
Arms looped around Brienne's middle. Dragged her into another hungry kiss. Jaime's lips were an oath against hers. Her hand smoothed down his chest, following the soft, sparse trail of fur on his belly to the waist of his breeches. Tarried there for a beat before venturing to cup the heated curve of his loins through the worn brown wool.  
  
Jaime drew back enough to chuckle in Brienne's ear. "Unsheathe my sword. Let me draw first blood."  
  
Brienne cringed. He was so very, very green, and yet so impossibly earnest. "I lost my maidenhead at nine to a palfrey." She owed him this simple truth, when he'd laid his own shame open to her, long ago in that muddy stockade.  
  
Another warm breath of laughter. "You loved to ride, I take it?"  
  
"Yes," Brienne answered simply.  
  
"Good," returned Jaime, mouthing at her pulse-point.  
  
Brienne lingered in Jaime's embrace for a long moment. Then she pulled away and dropped her hands to his laces. He tilted his head. His eyes blazed challenge. His thin lips were curved. She recalled their fight on the bridge. The way he'd sized her up with that knife of a grin, then it had been strike, parry, strike, parry until she prevailed.  
  
The breeches slid down Jaime's legs with a whisper. He kicked them aside and hastily toed off his boots. And then the lean, battle-worn glory of his body was bared to the morning, cock rising from the honey-dark thatch at its root.  
  
"Ah," Jaime gasped when Brienne took him in hand.  
  
"Good?" Brienne asked evenly, setting into a slow, tentative rhythm.  
  
"Oh, _yes_. Perfect. Like that." Jaime's eyes shut. His head fell back. "You're no timid maid. You've got a knight's grip." His voice was a keen gravel whine. "You should name your new blade. All great swords deserve a name."  
  
"Shut up," Brienne snapped. Of course he would run his mouth. He fucked like he fought.  
  
"_Make me_," Jaime drawled, eyes slitting open to meet hers.  
  
And so she crushed her lips to his and silenced his prattle. Locking arms around her, he edged her back, back, back. The bed cracked as he bore her down. Soft furs tickled her bare back. His weight was a living armour atop her.  
  
Jaime caught a nipple between his lips. A soft hitching cry escaped Brienne. Her fingers clutched the muss of his hair. He kissed down her belly, and then his head dipped between her thighs, tongue delving into her sex once more.  
  
He feasted on her until the grey light warmed to butter. Until her mind came unhinged and she peaked twice more. And then he laid back, his body a stretch of golden splendour upon the furs, and she rose and knelt astride him. His lips melted into a sun-bright smile, his hand holding her left hip in a gentle grip, stump stroking along her right flank.  
  
"Brienne," Jaime breathed, softly as a prayer. "I've wanted you for so long."  
  
"As I've wanted you," replied Brienne, bringing herself down.  
  
And then his flesh was joined with hers, his heart beating an echo of her own, and the longing was a distant memory. She spared herself a moment. A pause to catch her ragged breath. To savour the pleasant fit of him within her.  
  
It seemed a natural thing, to rise and fall and rise again, until she was rolling steadily, rider upon mount. Jaime's hand steadied her, his fingers biting little anchoring points into her hip, and his gaze was rapt upon her, mouth hanging ajar. He looked utterly wrecked, like a ship run aground on her shore, on the jagged rocks of all their misspent years.  
  
Warmth coiled in Brienne's belly as she rose and fell slowly. Jaime's hips lifted off the bed to meet hers in lazy jerks. Her hands braced on his shoulders, thumbs dipping into the shallow, sweat-dewed hollow between his collarbones. Stayed him as his eyes clamped shut, and his head tipped back to expose the long, corded column of his neck.  
  
Jaime's breath frayed into pants. The sweet fire built inside Brienne. And then it broke, finally, gentler this time. Her grit teeth caught her yelp. Jaime found his release soon after. His hips stuttered still and he gave a ragged roar. And then he was shuddering, wracked and ruined beneath her, and his seed washed into her in warm pulses.  
  
"Sorry," Jaime croaked when he had gathered the wind to speak.  
  
Brienne eased her fingers through the grizzled fur on Jaime's chest. "It's all right," she said evenly.  
  
"No, it's not," Jaime insisted. There was a sharpness in his tone. "I've always been _careful_."  
  
"It's all right," Brienne said, a little more sternly. She knew what careful had meant for him. Knew his bitter secrets. And so her words were a benediction, perhaps, and a promise, a prize stolen from a night of battle and blood.  
  
Jaime's eyes slipped shut. His large warm hand pressed between her shoulders. Pulled her closer. The point of his nose touched the crown of her head, and the soft, skittering rush of an exhalation ruffled her sweat-damp hair. Morning poured its gold into the chamber. Brienne closed her eyes. Let the steady sure beat of Jaime's heart draw her to sleep.


End file.
